As I was watching the first episode of The Trip, it occurred to me that it's remarkable in its own way that something like this got commissioned. Ostensibly, virtually nothing happens: a fictionalised Steve Coogan, whose girlfriend has returned to America, possibly forever, calls a fictionalised Rob Brydon as a last resort as he looks for someone to join him on a tour of restaurants in the north of England for The Observer. The two men bicker, get caught in a mix-up with the hotel they're staying in, bicker more over dinner and Steve goes for a walk up a hill. Then it ends, abruptly. What's more, it works, and it works well. I've never been a great fan of either of the men; I don't dislike them, but I'd struggle to name a film or television show either of them have been in that really grabbed me. Here, though, under the unusual constraint of playing exaggerated versions of themselves, they're unbound. Coogan is marvellously pretentious, a puffed-up dilettante whose awareness that his star is fading is non-existent. He looks at the world down his nose, and the episode is peppered with illuminating little moments that underline this—I particularly enjoyed his insistence that he's only a film away from getting back to where he wants to be, stardom-wise, only to be reminded that he's only a good film away from this. Brydon, on the other hand, is the saltier of the two: more light-hearted, perhaps, and prone to doing impressions of celebrities in public. He's less enamoured with himself, and enjoys a more relaxed rapport with members of the public.
Most of the enjoyment the audience gets is from the conflict between the two. It's clear that they don't get on, and as Coogan begins to visibly bristle as Brydon repeatedly does his impressions, I began to see why the pairing is so compelling. What begins as an annoyance—I'm absolutely with Coogan on the acceptability of doing impersonations in public—ends up being funny and endearing, as well as highlighting shorthand the differences and similarities between the two men. They (the real-life versions) are clearly happy to self-deprecate and almost gleefully deconstruct their public personas, playing up to popular conceptions of Coogan as stuck-up and perpetually misunderstood and Brydon as an amiable, cheeky chappy. The rest of the cast, seemingly a mix of actors and non-actors, gamely set up the situations they find themselves in, giving the set-up a more naturalistic feel. Michael Winterbottom intercuts the conversations the two have over dinner with shots from the kitchen, the other dining rooms and elsewhere in the hotel, almost lending the episode the feel of a magazine show. There's a slight edge, too, from the choice of music as Coogan drives to the surprisingly affecting last couple of minutes in the gloaming and sleet. What could have been on paper a rather boring set-up turns into a subtle, clever and funny deconstruction of celebrity and the banality that underlies its trappings.
Review by DeletedBlockedParent2019-07-11T21:11:30Z
As I was watching the first episode of The Trip, it occurred to me that it's remarkable in its own way that something like this got commissioned. Ostensibly, virtually nothing happens: a fictionalised Steve Coogan, whose girlfriend has returned to America, possibly forever, calls a fictionalised Rob Brydon as a last resort as he looks for someone to join him on a tour of restaurants in the north of England for The Observer. The two men bicker, get caught in a mix-up with the hotel they're staying in, bicker more over dinner and Steve goes for a walk up a hill. Then it ends, abruptly. What's more, it works, and it works well. I've never been a great fan of either of the men; I don't dislike them, but I'd struggle to name a film or television show either of them have been in that really grabbed me. Here, though, under the unusual constraint of playing exaggerated versions of themselves, they're unbound. Coogan is marvellously pretentious, a puffed-up dilettante whose awareness that his star is fading is non-existent. He looks at the world down his nose, and the episode is peppered with illuminating little moments that underline this—I particularly enjoyed his insistence that he's only a film away from getting back to where he wants to be, stardom-wise, only to be reminded that he's only a good film away from this. Brydon, on the other hand, is the saltier of the two: more light-hearted, perhaps, and prone to doing impressions of celebrities in public. He's less enamoured with himself, and enjoys a more relaxed rapport with members of the public.
Most of the enjoyment the audience gets is from the conflict between the two. It's clear that they don't get on, and as Coogan begins to visibly bristle as Brydon repeatedly does his impressions, I began to see why the pairing is so compelling. What begins as an annoyance—I'm absolutely with Coogan on the acceptability of doing impersonations in public—ends up being funny and endearing, as well as highlighting shorthand the differences and similarities between the two men. They (the real-life versions) are clearly happy to self-deprecate and almost gleefully deconstruct their public personas, playing up to popular conceptions of Coogan as stuck-up and perpetually misunderstood and Brydon as an amiable, cheeky chappy. The rest of the cast, seemingly a mix of actors and non-actors, gamely set up the situations they find themselves in, giving the set-up a more naturalistic feel. Michael Winterbottom intercuts the conversations the two have over dinner with shots from the kitchen, the other dining rooms and elsewhere in the hotel, almost lending the episode the feel of a magazine show. There's a slight edge, too, from the choice of music as Coogan drives to the surprisingly affecting last couple of minutes in the gloaming and sleet. What could have been on paper a rather boring set-up turns into a subtle, clever and funny deconstruction of celebrity and the banality that underlies its trappings.